I’m Not the Only Cornell Student Title IX Failed

A year after my rapist was found responsible following a Title IX investigation by Cornell University, rumors about the rape of my fellow student now known as Jane Doe began to spread on campus. We all knew that something bad had happened; we’d received a crime-alert email of a “sexual assault” involving a woman and “several males.” There were whispers about a fraternity group chat, a horrific message advertising “free pussy.” But that was all we heard, and news of the case faded with time. Needless to say, I was just as shocked as the rest of the world to learn the outcome.

Hearing Jane Doe’s story, I couldn’t help but feel as if I’d been fooled by the institution that was supposed to protect me. After a grueling Title IX investigation, my assailant was found responsible for my sexual assault in March 2023. His punishment? He received a “written reprimand,” was ordered to write a “reflection paper,” and was placed on behavioral probation until he graduated two months later.

For the past three years, I believed that his punishment was so light because my rape wasn’t significant or bad enough. I wasn’t drugged; he used no weapons. In the verdict issued in my case, the investigators wrote it didn’t seem like my rapist “acted maliciously.” I thought, Surely if my rape had “been worse,” the punishment would have fit the crime.

However, I realize now that I was not the only Cornell student failed by Title IX. It was not a singular case of misjudgment or a bug in the system. Rather, the university has put our assailants’ futures and their potential above our lives. This apparent pattern of “essays for rape” unravels the narratives we are told about sexual violence and accountability, illuminating the real cause behind the lack of justice for survivors.

I didn’t want to report my rape. I didn’t want my entire life to be dissected by investigators, to have the worst thing that has ever happened to me turned into evidence, and to be forced to provide my pain as “proof.” I didn’t want to spend Valentine’s Day of my sophomore year testifying in front of my rapist or being cross-examined by his counselor. Yet I did.

I was compelled to do so because I knew if he never faced any punishment, he would never have to reckon with that night and his actions. He was 28 years old and about to receive his graduate degree. He would have been allowed to rewrite it as a bad hookup, a forgettably unenjoyable night. If he thought of me at all, he may have remembered me as a crazed girl who forgot she gave consent or a 19-year-old who was embarrassed.

I didn’t have the choice to forget, to reframe that night for myself. To me, he is forever my rapist. I cannot know the rest of my life as anything except the aftermath of rape.

I know that I am one of many. In a country where the president has been held liable for sexual abuse, we are all too familiar with the brutal reality of how often perpetrators evade accountability. Yet as the news of Jane Doe’s lawsuit against her seven alleged rapists and Cornell University reverberated across the world, many were horrified by not only the unfathomably disgusting nature of the crime alleged but the egregiously empty response by the university. Five of the seven assailants were assigned to write an essay as punishment for allegedly drugging and raping Jane Doe in their fraternity house in the fall of 2024.

The response by Cornell University to both Jane Doe’s case and mine begs us to consider that the lack of justice for sexual-assault survivors is not necessarily an issue of believability but an issue of care. Do we care enough about survivors?

This lack of care is evidenced by the essay assignments, but it’s also in the structure of Title IX itself. There are nearly 26,000 students at Cornell but just three full-time investigators in the Title IX office. Cornell reports that 11 percent of students, approximately 2,860 people, are sexually assaulted each year. Even if only 10 percent of those victims reported, a single investigator would have a caseload of 95 per year. For the same body of students, there is one full-time victim advocate. With minimal time and resources to appropriately address the student demand, they are spread too thin, and a mere 25 percent of students are aware that the program exists at all. (In response to an inquiry about the similarities between my case and Jane Doe’s, a spokesperson for the university declined to comment citing federal privacy laws).

What Jane Doe, what I, and what every survivor deserves is care — a care that leads to a system of accountability and is capable of providing justice.

After my rape, I became constantly terrified that no one could hear me, that no one was truly listening. I resented the sound of my voice and what my body looked like in the mirror. I became afraid that the only thing I will ever be, all that I am, is a body.

Any beauty in my life now is not a measure of “how bad” getting raped was but a testament to my own persistence to continue living. In the time since my rape, I have felt everything there is to feel. I let myself be bad; I let myself be good. I find joy in spite of him. I am strong in spite of him. I grow in spite of him, I learn in spite of him, I love in spite of him, I am loved in spite of him, I exist in spite of him.

As Jane Doe’s lawsuit is litigated, I hope people will see, hear, watch, and speak about the case. But more than anything, I hope people will allow the anger, disgust, sadness, and grief to move them in such a way that they begin to truly care about these injustices.